


A Passing Storm

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: A storm swells, breaks, and passes.Set after 3.07, in the evening after Ross and Demelza argue on the beach.





	A Passing Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Show!based only, not book canon.
> 
> Thanks to pinkfairy727 for beta reading.

It’s dark when Ross returns – dark and stormy, the wind whipped up to a rage, heavy rain clouds hanging in the night sky threatening to release a torrent at any moment. For the past three hours Demelza has been fretting for him, glancing often up at the sky and hoping that he has the sense to come back before the rain comes. Jeremy’s been fretting, too. He dislikes his papa being absent at bedtime, too used to his goodnight hug and kiss. Even now she can hear him upstairs, battling with Prudie, refusing to go to bed as he’s refused to submit with grace to his bath, or to his supper. He knows something is amiss, her sensitive son, and he won’t settle, though it’s long after time he should be asleep.

Ross comes in quietly, through the kitchen; the first Demelza knows of his return is when he steps into the parlour, dropping his hat onto the table and then shrugging off his coat. She’s been sitting by the fire, but now she leaps up, turns to him and glances him over in a hurried inspection. He’s limping, just slightly, as if he’s walked too far on the foot that even now still twinges from time to time. His expression is bleak and somehow vulnerable. It makes her heart ache to see it. It makes her heart ache to know that she failed to help him, that she even made it _worse_. 

She inhales to speak, but Ross sighs, and she can see how he grits his teeth, as if expecting another argument. And why should he not? She has offered him nothing else, today. She changes tack, alters the words that had sprung to her mouth.

“Come and sit by the fire, Ross,” she says instead, gently. “Here, I’ll help with your boots. There’s supper kept for you. Brandy? You must be chilled to the bone.” She steps forward, takes his arm and guides him to the seat she has just vacated. Ross looks at her sideways, from the corner of his eye, all suspicion and caution. Demelza refuses to take it to heart. She deserves it, after her mistimed, frustrated outburst on the beach. “Here,” she says again, kneeling down to take off his boots. They’re soaked; he’s been walking in the sea, or at the very least careless of the waves and the sea spray. She helps him take the boots off, and sets them close to the hearth. His stockings are dry, at least. “I’ll fetch some slippers,” she says, rising again. Ross reaches out and catches at her wrist before she can move away.

“Demelza,” he says. His voice is hoarse. She covers his hand with hers.

“Warm up first,” she says. “There’s nothing that won’t keep.” Ross looks up at her, sharp-eyed and assessing, and then he sighs again, and nods, and lets her go. He leans back on the bench seat, head tilted back, eyes closing. He looks so very weary, so very defeated. It hurts to see it, hurts to know she had some small part in it. She grits her teeth against the apologies that want to flood out. She needs his forgiveness, but she knows it for the selfish need it is; he needs warmth and food and comfort, just now, not to listen to her outpourings of regret and contrition.

It’s the work of a minute to find his slippers and to pour him a glass of brandy. She puts the slippers onto him herself, while he sips from his glass. Then she goes to fetch his supper, kept warm in the bread oven so Garrick couldn’t get at it. When she brings it back to him, Ross shakes his head.

“I’m not hungry,” he says. He’s still hoarse, though half the glass of brandy is gone. 

“You’ve not eaten since breakfast,” she reminds him. “Just a little, Ross.” She feels like she’s coaxing Jeremy; perhaps the thought occurs to Ross, too, because he manages the slightest of smiles, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. She brings a stool scuffing across the floor, sets it beside him to serve as a table, and then retreats to the other bench seat. Ross puts down the brandy, picks up the bowl of stew and absently stirs the spoon once, twice. But it’s clear he has no appetite, at least at the moment, and forcing food on him won’t help, so she says nothing more.

Above them, Prudie’s voice rises. Demelza hears the thud of little feet, and rubs a hand across her eyes. Jeremy will wake Clowance, if he’s not careful, and even if he doesn’t, he’ll be wrecked tomorrow for lack of sleep.

“Why is he still up?” Ross asks. He’s retrieved the brandy, set aside the stew. Demelza hesitates over her answer. A retort leaps into her mind, but she is weary from Jeremy’s antics, and weary of having such sharp words in her mouth – and aware that she had worsened his grief, this morning. She has always found his moods in grief difficult to handle, but she has handled him so badly today. She has _treated_ him so very badly. So she shoves away the sharp retort, but is left with a response that, though softer, will still cause him some pain.

“He wanted you all day,” she says, as gently as she is able. “He scarce ate his supper. He’s been saying he won’t sleep without his kiss.” As she’d imagined he would, Ross flinches. Guilt is visible. Demelza hesitates again. “I told him you were very sad and had to be away for this evening,” she says eventually. “He don’t understand what it means, when someone dies.”

“No.” Ross closes his eyes again, tilts back his head. “No, he’s too young. Thankfully. What blissful innocence.”

There’s something in his voice that stabs at her, and now it’s her turn to flinch. “Or ignorance?” she suggests.

“That too.”

“Ross –,” Her own voice sounds hoarse now, betraying the way a lump has formed in her throat. Ross lifts his head again and looks at her. She can’t read him. She hates it when she can’t read him. “Ross, I’m _sorry_ ,” she says. “I’m that sorry. I was…stupid and angry and –,”

“Demelza –,”

“ – and it don’t matter, what I was feeling, because I should never have…not today, not with that news.” She has broken her own resolution, to keep from speaking of it until he is warm and fed and comfortable, but she can’t help herself. She despises herself for being so unfeeling as she had been on the beach. She’s still angry about the whole thing, still enraged that George, again, should have what by right and by merit should be Ross’s, but she should not have spoken of it this morning. She knows that. She’d known it at the time, really, but there is a hardness in her still, left from that awful time after his night at Trenwith, and it comes out too often when she cannot understand Ross. It’s a fault that sometimes mars their relationship, and she knows she is the only one with the ability to change it, but it’s so very difficult to cast away, in those moments when she feels shut out from him again, pushed aside by him. 

It is a bad habit. She is trying to break it, but not succeeding terribly well. Perhaps he won’t forgive her, today. Perhaps he would be right not to do so.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. Because it’s true, and because it’s all she can offer up to him. “I’m sorry.”

Ross nods, slowly, but when he speaks, it seems unrelated. “We used to sit together,” he says. “Side by side, here…or at the table, or in the kitchen…do you remember?” Demelza nods. She remembers. “When did we stop? Not…not during that time, of course, but since then?”

“I’m not sure,” she admits. “T’wasn’t deliberate. Maybe when Clowance came.” 

“Come and sit with me now.” He moves along the bench an inch or two, and Demelza slowly rises, crosses the space between them, sits down next to him. Ross puts an arm around her, and after a moment Demelza sighs a shuddering sigh and rests her head on his shoulder. Ross hugs her close to him. They are both silent for a while, and then at length Ross sighs, and takes another sip of brandy. “I couldn’t do it, Demelza,” he says. “I couldn’t…bend my principles whenever another man tells me to. Maybe that makes me stubborn, but it’s true.”

“No, Ross, it don’t make you stubborn,” Demelza says quietly. She doesn’t entirely believe herself, but she knows there is some other reason to his refusal, some other reason why he feels he cannot bend to another man’s order. 

“It would break me, in the end,” he says. “I’ve not been broken by anything in my life so far, though I’ve come close a time or two. As you know.” He shifts a little; Demelza lifts her head to look at him. He looks bleak, again. Vulnerable and terribly young, in some indefinable way. She leans forward and kisses his cheek. 

“I’d not have you broken,” she tells him. Then, unbidden and despite her own resolve, that edge of hardness creeps back into her heart. “I don’t want a pet doing my bidding.” He winces, grimaces, but says nothing. She’s not finished speaking yet, anyway, and she is determined to not to let the hardness remain. “I want you to be happy,” she says, “and content…in yourself, I mean. Not just with me, or the children, or the farm, but _you_. So often…” She hesitates, not sure she should say what she wants to say.

“Go on,” he advises her.

“Well…you shan’t like to hear me say so, Ross, but so often there is this…this restlessness in you, is there not?” Ross arches an eyebrow and gives her a one-sided smile, one corner of his mouth lifting. “You have so much energy and so much you can _do_ , and you want to use it for good,” she continues, “and of course I want you here, always. Of course I want that. But I want you to be _truly_ content, and I worry that maybe you aren’t always, just being here and being what you are.”

He considers her. “You worry that I won’t always be content with you?” he suggests.

Demelza shakes her head at once. “No, not that,” she says. “Not that. I know – truly, I do know that you’re content with me. Happy with me, as I am with you. But as a quiet country squire, I mean.”

Ross gives a huff of amusement. “Perhaps you’re right,” he says. “You’ve commented before on my reckless streak…do you think I shall one day run off and join the Navy, or go back to Trencrom’s business, perhaps?” Demelza shakes her head, but she’s smiling a little, because he’s teasing her. Ross shrugs his shoulder and makes a face. “No doubt you’re right. I admit that sometimes I have an urge to do more. But it is not what I _want_ , Demelza. I want to be like this. You and I, in our home, working together for the mine and the farm and the villagers in Sawle and Mellin…I want this life.” Demelza lowers her eyes. She wants to believe him, but she has been his wife for many years now, and his servant before that, and she thinks he’s blinding himself, if he thinks he can truly be content in this life. 

She wants to believe him, because she wants him to be happy, but she doubts. She doubts. 

“I shouldn’t have spoken of it today, at least,” she says, instead of voicing her doubts. “Forgive me, Ross?”

He takes his time answering, but he keeps his arm around her, keeps her close to him, so Demelza does not – quite – worry that he won’t forgive her. She rests her head on his shoulder again, listens to the crackling of the fire in the hearth and hears another thud from upstairs. 

“You feel more strongly about George, these days, than even I seem to,” Ross says at last. “Why is that?”

“Oh…” Demelza shrugs a shoulder, makes a face even though he can’t see it. “I suppose…I suppose I can’t forget what he tried to do to Drake. I was so scared of losing him, when it feels like we’ve only just found each other again. And George would have done it, wouldn’t he? Had Drake hanged, all for spite.” She pauses. “After all…” 

“After all?”

“…he tried to have you hanged, too,” she mutters, finishing the sentence. Ross hums, thoughtfully. Demelza feels small and petty. To be holding onto these things, when Ross has let them go, makes her feel mean. But Drake is so very dear to her, and Ross…Ross is everything. No matter what other feelings come into her heart, no matter what other loyalties tug at her, Ross is the core of her whole life. George wished Drake dead and no doubt still wishes Ross dead. And, too – she can admit it to herself, though never to Ross – George had provided the final provocation for her nearly losing Ross in another way. So it galls her to see him exalted to positions of power, when she knows just how he can and has used his power before. He is not an MP to serve the people of Cornwall, as Ross would be. But perhaps Ross is right; perhaps it would destroy him, to have such power and yet still be at the mercy of another man’s whims and wishes. She must let it go. She must try.

“Don’t pick up an enmity with George for my sake,” Ross murmurs. “It’s a heavy burden to bear, and I would not see you carry it.”

“I’ll try,” she promises. 

“I dislike the thought of you becoming bitter because of it…or because of anything else. Least of all words I say in anger.” Demelza lifts her head again, to look at him. This time his expression is open, and regretful, and it makes her feel even more wretched – for he has still not said he forgives her, for her own angry words on the beach this morning. “I know you don’t want a pet, to do whatever you wish,” he says. “I…I suppose it was not really _you_ I was angry with, so much as the men who think they could make me their puppet.”

Demelza manages a slight smile. “And it was not you I was angry with, but George,” she admits. “But I still should not have said what I did. Least of all today.” Ross regards her for a moment more, and then he nods, and leans closer to press a kiss to her forehead. 

“We both have a temper, at times,” he says. “No doubt one day we’ll learn to sharpen our tongues in a better way, that does not cause us both grief.”

“Yes, Ross.” She lifts her head and kisses his mouth, just gently. “But you do forgive me?”

“Of course. I cannot imagine you could ever do anything that would be unforgivable.” His words warm her heart, and makes unexpected tears prick at her eyes. Ross’s smile is a little sad, as if he feels the same as she, warmed by the forgiveness and heartened by their closeness but distressed that they should have each caused the other such hurt. Then another thud from upstairs makes them both look up, and Ross rolls his eyes. “That child,” he says. “Surely he must be exhausted.”

“I’ll fetch him down to say goodnight,” Demelza says, pulling away from Ross. “That’s what he wants. He’ll go off quick enough after that.” Ross begins to rise, but Demelza pushes him back down and shakes her head. “No, you stay in the warm,” she says. “I’ll fetch him.” She gets up, and turns to go, but finds her wrist once again caught in Ross’s grasp. She looks down at him, surprised but perfectly willing to wait to see what he wants.

“Demelza,” he says. There is a wealth of meaning in her name, when he says it like this. She hears it all, and needs no more words. He loves her; he’s sorry; he forgives her; he _loves_ her.

“I know, Ross,” she says, bending to kiss him, his forehead and his cheeks and then his mouth. He loves her, and she loves him, and by and by they will get through these difficulties. They will continue to learn and to adapt, and one day there will be no shadow left hanging over them. It has grown dimmer with time, and Demelza must hold fast to the knowledge that one day it will be gone. Meanwhile, she must hold fast to his love for her, and hers for him. “Eat your supper,” she instructs him gently. “I’ll fetch Jeremy.”

And when Jeremy comes down in his nightshirt, and clamours to be held by his papa, Ross is calm and loving and affectionate. The rain batters at the windows of Nampara, but inside, at least for now, the storm is over.


End file.
